Clown Girl

by Monica Drake

  The doctor nodded. “Probably a little cranial neuralgia.”

  “Cranial neuralgia?” I said, “What’s that? Sounds serious.”

  He said, “Not at all. It’s nerve pain, a sort of pain in the head.”

  Great. I said, “So you’re diagnosing my headaches as pain in the head. How scientific is that?”

  The doctor looked at the nurse, then at the clipboard chart. “Anal neuralgia,” he said, and tapped the chart again.

  “Anal neuralgia?” I said, “Hey, I can do the math. A sort of pain in the ass?”

  The doctor smirked again, gave a flirty chuckle. “You’re a sharp cookie. Now tell us, how did the fire come in?”

  “The fire,” I said. “That’s another thing entirely. An accident. Juggling.”

  The doctor wrote in his notes, and said, “You have first-degree burns.”

  I said, “First degree—is that the worst, or the best? With murder, it’s the worst.”

  “With burns it’s the opposite. If this were murder, it’d be third degree.” He opened a drawer and took out a small silver hammer.

  He tapped my knee. My leg bounced.

  I said, “Now you’re giving me the third degree?”

  He said, “They’re first degree. Definitely first.”

  I said, “Funny thing is, once I was working on my second degree, a master’s in Clowning, but they kicked me out of school for drinking the helium.”

  “You make a habit of taking helium?” He motioned for the nurse to add that to her notes.

  “Doc, I thought it would raise my grades—”

  This whole conversation was a mistake. But I couldn’t stop. I was scared, nervous. Jittery and infected with one-liners, locked in a comic’s logorrhea. The jokes were my second mistake, after handing over the pills. They were my third, if you count catching the yard on fire. But my biggest mistake was what came next: I tried for honesty. I said, “Listen, I’m a clown, this is what I do. Skits, and juggling. Sometimes it backfires.” I swung aside one melon on the dangling boob suit, reached in my bra for the ever-present union card, and pulled out a small flurry of family photos. My parents on their pier, Rex in full flame. A folded napkin fell to the floor. I reached again, found the union card; it lay tucked close to my heart.

  The nurse picked up the napkin. “Is this yours?” She unfolded it and read it out loud: “EKG = Nazis.” She turned the napkin over and read, “Christ was a Christian clown. Work on tying Madonna.”

  “EKG equals Nazis?” the doctor read again. He caught the nurse’s eye.

  She turned the napkin sideways and read, “Every clown is Christ.”

  “Ah, the heart of the matter,” the doctor said. The matching caterpillars of his eyebrows raised. “A Christ complex. Delusions of grandeur. Persecution.” He nodded slowly. Put his reflex hammer back in the drawer. The nurse tucked the napkin in a folder, then turned away and disappeared behind the curtain.

  Here’s what I know now: never let a misunderstanding go unclarified in a hospital, same as in a school, jail, or prison. Never carry a diary with you, not even a day planner if you write notes in it. Don’t say, “Yes, that’s mine,” to any odd scrap of nothing, to what might have been interesting in the free world.

  The hospital, it’s a gateway. The path to incarceration.

  Your best bet is don’t even write anything down. Ever. Most of all, don’t go near the hospital unless your problem is obvious as a bullet or a broken leg, and don’t go more than once. Otherwise you’ll learn about a two-doctor hold, Doctor Two-Hold, a seventy-two-hour detainment—and seventy-two hours can be longer if it’s late at night or over a weekend.

  Two nurses came to escort me down the hall, one on each side. The Fat Ass clung to my waist like a sinker. The boobs were a yoke around my neck. We came to a set of double doors where a sign said L-Ward, in big purple letters above the doors. One nurse pushed a button. With a click the doors swung open. We moved through them. I heard the soft click a second time as the doors locked behind us.

  “You’re in a safe place,” a nurse said.

  Another, behind a desk, said, “We’ve got a little paperwork. Standard admitting procedure.” They showed me to a small room with windows on three sides. The windows were blocked with cream-colored blinds. “Have a seat.”

  There was one chair, the only thing in the room. The Ass barely fit in the curve of the molded orange fiberglass. The admitting nurse handed me a clipboard of paperwork and a purple crayon.

  “A crayon?”

  “For your own good.” She smiled. “No sharp edges.”

  I balanced the paperwork on my knee, used the back of my arm to hold a flopping boob out of the way, and used the crayon to fill in the date, my name, and social security number. “You start with the easy questions, I see.”

  The nurse smiled again. “If you need me, press this button.” It was a silver knob on the wall. She backed out of the tiny room, pulled the door closed.

  The crayon stuck against the blisters on my palms, and the whole writing kit made for big, sloppy letters. Then came the real questions: True or false. I believe sometimes violence is justified, when a person is asking for it.

  I crayoned in, Define ‘asking’?

  True or false: The world is against me.

  Sometimes?

  A dark shape moved just beyond the windows, outside the room. I reached to part the blinds. My hand hit glass before my fingers reached the blinds, like a mime routine. An invisible box. I spread my fingers over the cool window. The blinds were on the outside? I crouched low and tried to squint through the narrow slats. The Pendulous Breasts swung forward as I leaned. I could only see bits. A security uniform. I went back to the questions:

  I believe I am a danger to myself and/or others.

  People can hear my thoughts.

  Nobody understands me.

  I worry about my health—sometimes, always, or never.

  At the bottom of the page there was a handwritten prompt: What does the following mean to you: EKG = Nazis? Please explain. Also: Christ is a Clown? Explain.

  “Hey,” I said, out loud. “What is this? Who else read my napkin?” I tried the door. The door was locked. I was locked in. I tapped on the window. Tap, tap, tap. And again I was the lobster in an aquarium, a prisoner in the tidy side of hell. I hit the chrome knob to call a nurse.

  The door swung open, knocked into me, and threw me back, and the sweaty doctor fell fast into the room, backed by a nurse. He said, “You have a right to request a lawyer. Would you like a lawyer at this time?”

  I said, “Lawyer? What, am I being sued?”

  He said, “We think you should stay here for a while. We’d like to keep an eye on you. We’ve decided you’ll be admitted.”

  “Admitted?” Like a hospital was a club I’d been hoping to join.

  Admitted, detained, arrested. Murmur, palpitate, flutter. Language was a thin line being drawn, the deciding factor, nothing more than a name.

  “We’ll treat the burns, see that you’re OK,” he added. “You’ll get a few nights rest.”

  “A few nights?”

  They didn’t care about my burns. Superficial, they called them. Minor. First-degree blisters. But what this new language changed was the name of my ward. Now ER became not ICU, but Psych. Psych at the top of my folder. Psych on my record. Psych would be the place keeping me from going back to Baloneytown, to the house I’d rather not be living in anyway.

  I saw it now: L-Ward. Those big purple letters over the doors. L stood for Loony Bin. The Mental Motel. L was for that barely audible click of somebody else controlling when the doors opened.

  In the made-for-TV version of my life this is when I’d start swinging. I’d fling an arm back to push the guard’s hand from my shoulder, lift a knee to his crotch as he lunged my way, and run down the hall, robe flapping, slippered feet slick against the shine of the linoleum. I’d kick and scream until Prozac or its next of kin showed me how much I needed the hospital’s
help.

  Instead, I felt tiny. My shoulders were small. My arms were sick with the grip of burns. The IV gear in my hand was only a plastic tube and tape, but it felt like a needle under the skin and that thin line of plastic gave the hospital control.

  I said, “No no no. No thank you.” I couldn’t run if I had to, with the boob suit heavy around my neck. I could only waddle; the Ass slapped my butt with each step.

  “It’s in your best interest.”

  “Interest? Lock-up? I have zero interest in being locked up.” I said, “A hospital’s a terrific institution—”

  A nurse said, “I know, I know…and you’re not ready to be institutionalized yet. That’s what they all say.”

  Shit. I needed new material. It was a variation on a line from Mae West. “You beat me to the punch.”

  She said, “Punch?” and made a fast note.

  I said, “You beat me to it.”

  She stepped back. “Beat?” She made another note.

  “Rather aggressive language,” the doctor said.

  “I mean, you stole my lines.” I peeled the Pendulous Breasts off my neck and dropped them to my hand. They reached the floor; I bent an elbow and lifted the boobs far enough to dangle.

  The doctor and the nurse both jumped back. “Armed,” the doctor called out. “She’s armed. Security! Somebody call security.”

  The nurse ducked out the door. The doctor stayed between me and the exit.

  “Armed?” I said. “What’re you talking about? You’re crazy.”

  The doctor said, “Just stay calm. Stay…calm.” He pulled an amber vial from a deep shirt pocket and shook pills into his palm. My Chinese BBs? He swallowed the pills without water, like a bird choking down an unwilling minnow. Security came up behind him. The nurse hid behind Security.

  “What’s the problem?” the guard asked.

  The doctor, suddenly brave with backup, cleared his throat, deepened his voice, and, like a line from a favorite old movie, growled, “Drop the weapon.”

  “The weapon?” I held one thing. “This?” I swung the boobs. Everyone jumped back. The boobs slapped together like massive numchucks, like a toy a psychiatrist would have on his desk—particularly a Fruedian. They poured grains of sand to the floor as they slapped and swung, and gave off a cloud of scorched polyester.

  “We don’t want to use force,” the doctor said.

  “What do you mean, armed? These are boobs. I’m not armed, I’m boobed.” Another one-liner, that nervous habit.

  “Whatever it is,” the doctor said. “Let’s not argue. Just drop the, ah, what you’d call boobs.”

  I let go. The Pendulous Breasts fell to the floor.

  The doctor relaxed. His shoulders sagged. “That’s a girl. Now we’ll just move slowly, OK. We’ll take care of your burns, see to your needs. And the fire department has a few questions. Soon as we get you admitted, they need a moment of your time. They’re waiting outside.” He slid along the wall toward me.

  Beyond the door, I saw them: blue uniforms, a line of men. The fire department. I felt a cold sweat on my back, and my palms steamed.

  “After you talk to the fire department, we’ll give you something to help you sleep. Show’s over. The curtain will drop. And it’ll all be different when you wake up.”

  The nurse stepped in, ran an alcohol wipe over the inside of my elbow.

  A shot?

  “Clean up the burns,” the doctor said. “Then prepare the meds.” He had a file close to his chest. Written across the top, in large red letters, it said, Possible danger to self and others.

  The firemen shuffled, impatient.

  The nurse bent over her tubes and bandages. She said, “Doctor, there’s a fly in this ointment.”

  One fireman came forward, the smallest of the pack. He moved fast in his blue uniform, and I saw then it wasn’t a fireman at all—it was Jerrod. The streaks in his hair were muted under the hospital’s lights, but they were still there, gleaming and golden. The lines around his eyes were more weathered than ever. He needed sleep and looked serious, maybe sad. I smelled cinnamon and spice over the antiseptic air, the apple streusel cloud of sweetness. My friend. He flashed a badge.

  My only hope.

  He reached for me.

  “We need her downtown. Right away. She’s dangerous.”

  Dangerous? He grabbed my arm. His grasp wasn’t gentle. Shit. He pulled me forward. Something in my neck sprung with the whiplash of his yank. “You’ll have time for questions.” He waved to the firemen. “You’ll all have a chance. She’s not going anywhere. We’re managing this city’s clown problems. The bashing, the improv—we’re on it.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “Not on purpose.”

  He said, “You’ll have time to tell your side of the story.”

  I said, “The boobs! Please.”

  I couldn’t stand to lose another thing. First my chicken, then the dog. First Rex, then our baby. First my parents, then everything else. “Just grab the boobs.”

  Jerrod jerked to a quick stop, leaned toward me, and whispered, “Grab whose boobs?”

  “Mine.” And fast as his hands came toward me, ready to comply, I pointed at the two lumps of burnt sandbags on the floor. “Not mine—those. Those are my boobs.” The boobs were scorched and crumpled as well-worn paper lunch bags.

  “Ah, pyromaniacal evidence,” Jerrod said, loud enough for everyone to hear. He darted forward, grabbed the boobs in one hand and held me by the elbow with the other. He held my arm as we marched down the hall. The firemen got out of our way, though not fast enough or far enough to escape the jiggle of the Ass as it jostled side to side. It knocked into firemen as Jerrod pulled me past. The swing of the Ass was like two heavy hands, a gun to my back.

  17.

  Evidence, One and All; or, Life’s Bloody Picnic

  SOON AS THE CAR ROLLED I KICKED OFF MY BIG SHOES. The burns on my arms pounded in rhythm to my heartbeat. The one-liners slipped away like a winter coat I didn’t need in the spring of being sprung. It’s against Clown Code, or at least against my own code, to ride in the back of a cop car—don’t even get in a car if the door handles don’t work from the inside and the windows won’t roll down—but this time the ride was an act: My Big Escape.

  I hoped it was an act. I’d barely escaped. “Jerrod?”

  He said, “Relax.”

  OK.A prisoner in custody would ride in back. I got it, that was my role in the shtick. I lay across the seat and rested my head on the scorched Pendulous Breasts, two big, leaking pillows. The seat smelled like the K-9 unit, animal and damp.

  “I have a fever,” I said.

  Jerrod drove through the sprawling acres, the endless prairie, of the hospital’s lot. He said, “You’ll be fine. I’m taking you over to the evidence room.”

  What was that? I sat up fast. The bunched Ass held me at a cocked angle. “So now I’m evidence?” I pushed against the iron grating that separated the front and back seats, and tried to right myself. “Thought you’d take me home.”

  He said, “That too. Maybe. First, we’re holding some evidence you’d be interested in.”

  “Evidence of what?”

  Through the metal grating, in the rearview mirror, his lips parted. “It’s a surprise.”

  So he had evidence of my arson effort, my Big Girl Suit, Herman’s pot plants in our shed? Maybe he had the juggling torches, the turp can, a melted wig, charred grass. I was a dog on the way to the pound, the perp with the turp. “I don’t know if a cop springing evidence on me is the kind of surprise I need.” The snaps at the crotch of the Fabulous Ass chafed my sweaty thighs. Ash residue was like minute shards of glass caught in the elastic at my elbows and waist.

  Jerrod rolled his window down.

  I wanted evidence of my own bed, and a cool shower. I’d been up for a day and a half, through the fire and out again—reborn by fire, a Hopi Indian yellow clown might say. I reached inside my pants with both hands.

 
“What’re you doing back there?”

  The IV works in the back of my hand snagged. My throbbing arms were sticky with ointment. Jerrod’s eyes darted back and forth in the rearview, between me and the street, me and the street.

  “Eyes on the road.” I tugged at the crotch snaps on the Fabulous Ass. Jerrod looked at me in the mirror again. I said, “OK, if that’s how you want it, watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat. A bra down the sleeve, roast beef from a deli case.” I tugged, the snaps gave, and my hands slapped against the inside of my pants. With a wiggle and a shove, I pulled the Fab Ass out past the waistband. “Ta da!” I dropped it on the floor, fluffed the burnt pillow of the Pendulous Breasts, lay across the seat, and closed my eyes.

  THE EVIDENCE ROOM WAS A WHOLE CINDER BLOCK WAREHOUSE behind an abandoned grocery. We drove down the alley and parked in front of an unmarked door.

  “This is what they call the Annex. There’s Impounded Cars.” Jerrod pointed to a narrow, gated parking lot between buildings.

  One long white car in front had the windshield broken out and doors pocked by bullets. Walking without the sandbag weight of the Ass for the first time in hours, I was light as an astronaut. I made my way toward the car corral barefoot over rocky macadam, free of the big shoes.

  “I’ll warn you, the cars get grisly. Baby seats, flattened roofs, things you don’t want to have on your mind.” He bent to work his key in the lock in the shadow of the doorway. “That white sedan was a high-speed chase. Maybe you saw it on the news.”

  “I don’t watch the news.” A silver cross on a piece of yarn dangled and glinted from the sedan’s mirror; the car itself was a white ghost.

  The evidence room was huge and dark until Jerrod flipped a switch to bring it all into full color. Everything was under plastic, with yellow tape and orange labels.

  “Check this out.” He pointed to a plastic-wrapped door that’d been taken off its hinges. “Bullet holes from both sides.” He lifted the door away from where it leaned against a wall. “A big drug bust, about six blocks from here. That shoot-out didn’t even make the news.” He held the blown-to-bits door in his hands and dropped the weight back and forth to look at one side, then the other. “And look at these locks.” He ran his hand over the plastic, over a row of dead bolts and sliders. “They knew somebody’d be coming.”